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French filmmaker Louis Malle (My Dinner With Andre) traveled to the Indian port in 1968, shortly after martial law was declared, and among the sights collected in this leisurely documentary are volatile street demonstrations by political protesters. In a voice-over Malle declares that 40 percent of the population endures “subhuman conditions,” and he spends a fair amount of time examining the city's notorious street poverty. But the film captures all walks of life, recording, among other things, a wedding ceremony, a funeral pyre, a construction site, and Sunday-afternoon wrestling matches in a public park.
ByJ.R. Jones